


This is the World We Shall Build

by Mayarene Rose (Paradise_of_Mary_Jane)



Category: DC Cinematic Universe, Justice League (2017)
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Family, Gen, bruce is very sad, except it's still sad, the batfam in the dceu
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-13 14:19:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13572354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane/pseuds/Mayarene%20Rose
Summary: The alien invasion ends and they go home. Obviously, this is not the end.Heroes are emerging or heroes are returning. There's a family to be built and a family to be redeemed. Bruce doesn't think he's ready for any of that.(aka i bring the batfam to the dceu because i can)





	1. Bruce

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been in my folder for a long time now but I also kinda rushed it. I've been meaning to bring the batfam into the DCEU for a while now and this was meant to be way happier and light-hearted but then uh... the implications caught up with me and stuck in my head so we have this fic. Updates will also be kinda slow. I have an outline of this thing already but I think I need to rewatch Justice League before I write the next chapter because a lot of it has slipped from my mind and that might take a while.  
>  ~~aka there is a reason aquaman is nowhere in this chapter~~
> 
> Anyways, Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The alien invasion ends and they go home. Obviously, this is not the end.
> 
> Heroes are emerging or heroes are returning. There's a family to be built and a family to be redeemed. Bruce doesn't think he's ready for any of that.

Not surprisingly, fighting hoards of insectoid aliens bent on destroying the universe doesn’t actually fix anything. 

Clark very pointedly doesn’t speak to him after the battle which is good for Bruce, because he has no intention of explaining his motivations. He wouldn’t understand, at any rate. Barry chatters on aimlessly and Victor still looks like he can’t believe what’s happening to him. Bruce’s heart hurts with the familiarity of it.

The six of them separate with vague promises of protecting the world. Bruce is not counting on it. Any event that would require the power of all of them to stop is not something that should be looked forward to. Best for those contingencies to stay as contingencies.

Bruce comes home to an empty loft. He knows that Alfred is lurking somewhere because Alfred is always lurking somewhere, but Alfred is also incredibly good at blending into the background that it would take too much energy Bruce doesn’t have to try and find him. He almost invites Barry to stay for a night, the boy is nothing if not a reminder of better times, but that may be asking for too much. Bruce is… Bruce is exhausted.

Exhaustion seeps into Bruce’s bones, the way it always does when he sees the empty cave. Jason’s case still sits at the center of it, accusing. He wonders what Jason would have thought of what Bruce has done. Bitter words, anger, fury. Jason knows better than anyone the importance of staying dead. He would never forgive Bruce if he found out what he’d done. Not that he’d forgiven Bruce for the other things he’d done before. Hate that was just beginning to simmer down with time would fester again.

A part of Bruce thinks that he did what he did just as some form of self-imposed punishment.

He pushes back his cowl and runs a hand through his hair. It’s been a decade and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to a cave that isn’t full of laughter and life. Barry and the rest could have filled it with that again, but not the same. Having something new doesn’t mean you didn’t lose anything. Bruce probably knows that better than anyone.

His computers light up and his shoulders tense.

“They’re coming back to Gotham, just so you know,” it says.

Bruce holds himself very still, shoulders relaxing marginally. It’s been a long time since he’s heard that computerized voice. Even longer since he’s heard the actual one. He’s not sure the fact he’s hearing it now is a good thing or not.

“I thought I told you not to hack my computers,” he says.

A snort. “You can’t stop me. You can’t stop them, either. Especially now.”

A breath. Bruce has gotten used to the emptiness but that doesn’t mean he’s used to the loneliness. The memory of something beautiful exists at the edges of his mind, pushed aside by more important things. Now that the more important things have passed, all he’s left with is an empty cave and an exhaustion that won’t ever go away.

“Tell them to take the penthouse,” Bruce says. “If they want it.”

“”You know they’re not going to want your help.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t offer it,” he says. “They’re still my sons.”

“Oh Bruce.” It’s hard to convey a sigh through a mechanized voice but Bruce hears it anyway. “You know it’s much more complicated than that.”

 

\--

 

That week, Red Robin and Red Hood fly in Gotham for the first time in years. 

Gotham doesn’t really know Red Hood nowadays, only of him. The people of the city have a short memory and the terror of a crime lord beheading people just blurred together with the endless cycle of crime that plagues the city. These past years, he operates mostly on Bludhaven, where you need more roughness, more grit than even Gothamites. A hero with guns isn’t quite as terrifying there.

Red Robin. Robin but not quite. Robin with a dark cowl on his head, not a bright eyed mask. Not the Robin Gotham remembers. This Robin doesn’t laugh. He’s quiet, like a shadow; older than the children people usually associate with Robin but still wears the bright colors of youth. His costume is mostly red, like blood splattered all over the body.

There are rumors of a third person but no one can get a clear picture of him. There’s no name to call him. Most people don’t believe he exists.

Batman returned to Gotham months ago, it only makes sense that the Robins will follow because Robin always follows, no matter how much Batman tries to leave that legacy behind. The heroes are returning, or the people who want to be heroes are. Bruce isn’t sure if the city is ready for it. He definitely isn’t.

Batman knows enough about them to know the most likely patrol route they’re going to take. He avoids it. He thinks he can run from his problems a little while longer. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of close calls. The three of them are new to this, relearning the city that made them and broke them. 

They don’t meet. It’s not just Bruce who’s trying to avoid a confrontation.

 

\--

 

Diana turns up at the loft one day, dragging Clark with her. Bruce receives them in the living room, feeling more than a little wrong-footed. Alfred sits down the three of them around the dining table, serving them tea with a knowing look towards Bruce.

“We’re going to stop being stupid,” she tells the two of them. “We have the power to help people. We should use it.” She sips at her tea and looks at them in the way only Wonder Woman can manage.

“We are helping people,” Bruce says. “On our own. I don’t see a reason to keep doing it together. The world’s not ending.”

Diana glares at him from behind her cup. Bruce takes a sip of his own to avoid her eyes. Clark had gotten up and is now standing to the side, arms wrapped around himself and not saying anything. They almost look like they belong in the loft, Diana with her aristocratic features, and Clark with his quiet observation. Bruce doesn’t know if it’s just him who sees something not quite human in the glimmer of their eyes.

“We have a chance to become more than we are,” she insists. “To give people hope.”

“Like heroes?”

The room tenses. Bruce can read Clark’s anger in the clenching of his jaw. Diana is defiant but confused. Bruce doesn’t she think she knows the specifics of what was actually taking place in that harbor that night.

“Heroes get people killed, Diana,” he says tiredly. “We’re all better off if we keep to ourselves.”

“That is cowardly.”

“I don’t care,” he says. “I do this my way. If you want to know what being a hero gets you, just ask Clark.”

And he’s definitely crossed a line there and Clark is very clearly pissed but Bruce has been doing this for too long. He’s lost too much. He doesn’t give that much of a damn, anymore. 

“You can see yourselves out,” he says.

Diana gives him a disbelieving look. She’s laid her cup aside and her fists are clenched on the table. 

“We are friends,” she says. 

“That’s what you say.”

“You can’t live in fear forever.” 

“Watch me.”

She sucks in a sharp breath and storms away, slamming the door behind her. Bruce turns away. He wishes he could believe her. He knows, objectively, that she is much, much older than him, but in this moment, it feels like he’s aged centuries.

“Diana has a point, you know.”

“You’re the last person I expect to be here discussing, Kent.”

“I thought you’d…” Clark trails off, frowning, not looking at Bruce. “You brought me back to life.”

Bruce’s lips thin and he doesn’t answer. He has nothing to say, nothing to explain. No way to do either.

“We have a responsibility to this world,” Clark says. “With the power we’ve been given.”

“To do what, Clark?”

Not to abuse it. Not to use that power to soothe their own guilt. To use it for good. To help.

“To be their hope.”

Bruce snorts. 

“You can’t possibly believe that, do you?”

Clark stalks towards him. His fists are loose at his side. There has always been something a little too inhuman about him, about his eyes, about the twitch of his mouth. But at the same time, he’s a guy who lived in Kansas and moved to Metropolis. He’s someone who has a girlfriend and loves his mother very much. He’s someone who reaches and tries at both sides, failing either way. That was the most terrifying to Bruce. That he plays with human hearts so easily without  completely understanding them and without being completely apart. That the world will fashion a god out of someone who can never be a part of them. But what was more human than this? This longing for something more, this desire to create a better world?

Humanity will always be Superman’s downfall.

“You can’t see past your own darkness, can you?” Clark demands. “You can’t even be bothered to help make the world better because you’re so far gone you can’t see a glimmer of light.”

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Bruce says. “All I know is everyone dies and heroes die bloody.”

“You’re scared.”

Bruce’s parents were shot in a dark alleyway. His son died in an abandoned warehouse. His other son had knelt by his parent’s broken bodies as his entire world left him behind. Every inch of Gotham is covered in the blood of innocents. The people of the city fall asleep to the sound of children crying out. It’s a city full of people worth saving, but Bruce isn’t naive enough to believe it can actually be saved.

In reality, some part of him never stopped being a scared little boy in a dark alleyway.

“I’ve lost a lot of things in this line of work. I know better than to believe there’s a better world to be made.”

“Then why do it?”

Because it’s what he’s always done. Because promises have been made and he can’t bring himself to fully break them. Words whispered by candlelight, borne out of blood and pain and anger and the desire to be something more. So many children left behind by the world that should have nurtured them. They were made in the dark, terrified and screaming, until they realized that there is no one going to save them.

They learned to save themselves. Or at least they learned to try.

Because some part of him still wants to believe in heroes.

“Because it’s the only thing left,” he tells Superman.

 

\--

 

Clark leaves. Bruce doesn’t expect anything different. Everyone leaves, eventually.

Alfred is less than pleased. Bruce lurks in the cave. He doesn’t think he can stand being Bruce Wayne right now. Alfred follows him because Alfred always follows him. His temper though, it seems, is fraying. Or as much as Alfred can ever fray.

“Master Bruce,” he says, voice sharp and cutting. “You cannot go on like this.”

“I’ve done it for years.”

“And where has that led you? All those years, wasted.”

Bruce doesn’t answer. Years in-between death and life, looking for that one push towards the other side. All he found was the monster he tried to stop, dwelling in the crevices of the most sacred, the most infallible.

Heroes die. Heroes fall. Heroes can only ever be human.

“You are the smartest man I know,” Alfred says. “Perhaps it’s time you learned from your mistakes.”

The cave is dark, falling apart. The weapons he hated are still lying scattered on the ground. There hasn’t been time to clean up, and even if there was, there are some things that can’t be washed away.

At the center is a suit that a child wore, stained with blood and all his mistakes.

“Try Master Bruce,” Alfred says quietly. “It’s not as if you have anything left to lose.”

“Alfred.” Bruce’s voice comes out too sharp, he thinks, as he watches Alfred go still. He swallows. He is suddenly very, very tired of this darkness, this loneliness. “What does it feel like to always be right?”

Alfred relaxes. There is a ghost of a smile on his lips. Bruce thinks that this might be the first right thing he’s done in a long time.

That night, Bruce makes a decision that is more impulsive than anything he’s done in a very long time: He invites Barry to Sunday lunch.

Barry, in turn, invites Victor Stone with him. Apparently, the two of them had kept in touch. Apparently, the two of them are really, really close friends now. Bruce probably knows where this is going but thinking about it hurts so he doesn’t.

In Gotham, there are two boys who are no longer boys who refuse to speak to Bruce. Bruce thinks that he deserves every bit of their disdain.

At Bruce’s table, there are two men who seem a lot like boys; a little lost, a little naive, still a little too innocent. It’s not a replacement, not even moving on; it’s reaching out and it’s trying. Bruce doesn’t know what’s going to become of it.

 

\--

 

It becomes a pattern. Barry comes after work and after he patrols Central, Victor stays because he doesn’t really have anywhere to go.

They tend to stay over. Barry has a habit of passing out in the study, Victor in the cave, even as Alfred insists that they use the guest bedrooms. They don’t go out on patrol but they do stay for breakfast. Then they wander away; Barry to his day job, Victor to wherever he wants.

Mostly, they come back. Often enough for Alfred to consistently set a place for them at the table. Often enough for Bruce to take their presence for granted.

The notion of  _that_ is terrifying.

 

\--

 

Diana still emails him. Bruce still emails her back, though he probably shouldn’t.

She travels around the world now. Diana Prince has taken a leave of absence from work and no one questions it. Wonder Woman appears sporadically in different parts of the world, mostly in war stricken areas. She becomes a bigger icon than Superman but she’s Wonder Woman and she was someone born to be one. It doesn’t hurt that she actually knows how to talk to people, instead of just floating above their heads. She knows how to be kind, how to be human. The world trusts her in the way they never really trusted Superman. 

She sends him case files, some from wherever she is that week, some from Kansas, some from Metropolis. She asks about Barry and Victor, about Robin and Red Hood. He looks at the case files and sends her back his notes. He pretends he doesn’t receive the other emails. He knows Barry and Victor email her as well and he doesn’t ask. When she asks him about his dating life, Bruce very pointedly doesn’t answer.

Subtlety, is not one of Wonder Woman’s qualities. At all. She is also much worse than Alfred.

Clark emails him once, about his mother’s apple pie recipe of all things. Bruce doesn’t really know how to answer that so he doesn’t, but he does pass the recipe onto Alfred.

 

\--

 

It takes a month before Barry snaps.

“Did you notice we kinda live here now?” Barry asks him one day. Bruce doesn’t look up from what he’s working on. Armor that resists high speed friction. It makes sense. It’s practical. He should be patrolling now but he can’t bring himself to leave it behind.

Sometimes, it’s physically painful to be around Barry and Victor. Most times, Bruce craves their presence like a drug. Barry who is so full of smiles and endless chatter, body in constant motion, and Victor with his constant need to please hidden by his constant defiance, his belligerence. It’s not really much of a surprise to anyone when those two are the ones who end up staying with him the most.

“Yes Barry,” Bruce says. “I have noticed.”

“And you don’t care?”

Bruce grunts. Barry takes that as answer enough.

“Man is this just a regular thing with you?” Victor asks, emerging from the kitchen, an apple in hand. He’s quicker to make himself at home than Barry is. “Do you just let anyone who wants live here?”

“Do you see anyone else here?”

“People generally want to live in million dollar lofts,” Barry adds helpfully.

“So it’s just the superpowered homeless people you pick up?”

Barry makes a squack of protest, probably to say that he is not technically homeless but Victor had hit him over the head. Not with his metal arm, thank god for small mercies. 

Bruce has forgotten what it was like having children living with him.

“Not quite,” Bruce says, thinking of two other boys who refused to come home. He’s pretty sure they’re not homeless.

“Are we not being a nuisance?”

Bruce sighs and puts down what he’s working on. He looks at the two boys currently looking to him.

“I’m a billionaire,” he says because that usually explains everything.

Barry brightens at that and Victor looks at him from underneath his eyelashes. Bruce remembers just what it is about this he loved once.

“Hey,” Victor says. “I’ve been meaning to ask, and since we’re talking about noticing, have you noticed Robin’s back too?”

_ That  _ brightens Barry up even more. If Bruce hadn’t raised Dick and Jason, he’d call the smile on Barry’s face the brightest he’s ever seen.

“Robin? Oh man Robin’s so cool! I’ve wanted to be Robin since I was thirteen! Do you know him? What am I talking about? He’s your partner, of course you know. Can I meet him? Is he cool? Is he here right now? Is he--”

“Barry,” Bruce says. His throat has closed up. He draws his attention back to what he was working on. He can’t bring himself to focus, though. “Robin’s not my partner. Not anymore.”

Barry stills.

“What?”

“Robin’s not my partner,” Bruce repeats. “That stopped a long time ago.”

Victor is staring at him, assessing. The boy has a good idea about absent fathers and strained relationships. Bruce is thankful that he doesn’t say anything.

“What do you mean?” Barry blurts out. “Does that have to do with…” He trails off as Victor nudges him. Their eyes travel to the center of the room.

“Oh,” Barry says as if he’s just figuring it out now. Bruce gets up abruptly.

“I’m going on patrol,” he says.

He doesn’t look back, just fastens the cape around him and pulls the cowl over his head.

 

\--

 

Batman crosses paths with a shadow.

The white, soulless eyes of a domino mask stare back at him. He can’t read the figure’s face out here in the dark, too still, too quiet and deliberate; he’s learned how to hide from Batman. Batman thinks of the blue of the sky, thinks of the scowling mouth upturned into a laugh. The figure is larger than he’s imagined, than what he remembers. Still long, sleek, graceful limbs.

His hand had reached out without him noticing. The shadow tenses and runs.

Batman doesn’t follow.

 

\--

 

Diana comes back, Clark once again in tow. Bruce is at the same time wary and confused. Barry is at work and Victor is apparently followed him there. The two of them are here for  _ Bruce. _

“I said no,” Bruce says.

"We’re not here for that,” Diana says. “We are here because you are our friend.”

“Friend,” Bruce echoes.

“We are having breakfast together,” Diana says, jaw clenched. She has the look of someone about to march into battle.

Bruce blinks. Blinks another time. Diana stares back, determined. 

Bruce knows when a fight is lost. Still, he’s not really one to give up.

“Clark?” he tries.

“I don’t mind,” Clark lies. Bruce blinks again. Diana has a vice grip on Clark’s arm. Neither of them are getting out of this. He takes a step back to let them in.

“Alfred made apple pie,” he says.

 

\--

 

“Master Bruce,” Alfred says to him that night. Barry has collapsed on the couch and Victor is in the guest bedroom. Bruce is impressed that he’s actually using it. Clark and Diana seem to take up more room than five people on the dining table. The two of them are sharing the other guest room. The loft is getting too crowded. “Perhaps you should consider opening up the Manor?”

Bruce presses his lips into a thin line. It’s painful thinking about the Manor. It’s a place of family, halls meant to be filled with laughter and people. It’s been empty for most of his life. The first time, he tried moving past the pain, holding on to the good memories it once held. The second time, the pain won.

Bruce should be alone, except he isn’t. Because one way or the other, life pushes its way back into his world.

“Maybe you’re right,” he finds himself saying.

 

\--

 

Red Robin wears the colors of blood. He doesn’t show his face anymore, hiding his dark locks underneath a cowl of his own.

Gotham remembers Robin as a laughing child, wild and untamable; the light to Batman’s darkness.

The world has changed. It has no place for Robin’s laughter. Not anymore.

 

\--

 

Batman patrols alone. Barry is still in love with Central City and keeps to its borders. Victor isn’t very interested in being a hero. Even if that weren’t the case, Bruce would never let superpowered people into Gotham. It’s complicated enough with just humans battling it out.

The city craves death. Violence is in its blood. Every Gothamite, rich or poor, is hard and full of jagged edges. The city demands nothing less.

There’s little time to be a child, even if you don’t end up putting on a mask. Bruce doesn’t want Barry and Victor anywhere near that.

He finds Red Robin unconscious and bleeding in an alleyway. There are ten unconscious thugs around him but it wouldn’t do to stay. There are no heroes in the alleys of Gotham, only the desperate. He doesn’t even think about how he sweeps him away and taking him to the cave. Bruce can never bring himself to leave a child behind.

Red Robin hasn’t really been a child in a long time but Bruce can’t help but think of him as that bright-eyed, fiery, thirteen-year-old.

Alfred stitches the boy up and doesn’t ask. He’s very good at saying a lot without saying anything at all. Bruce is not sure he can hold out with not answering for much longer.

“Oracle,” he says. “I know you’re there. I have Robin with me.”

“It’s Red Robin,” she corrects. “How bad?”

“He’s passed out,” he says. “Knife wound to the stomach. He lost blood but it missed any major organ.”

“Give it twenty minutes,” she says. Bruce doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to her computerized voice. “They’re a bit tied up right now. One of them will be there soon.”

She hangs up.Or at least Bruce assumes she does. He doesn’t hear anything else.

A groan comes from the medical table and Bruce turns just as Robin regains consciousness.

“What the--what happe--” The boy shoots upright as he becomes aware of his surroundings and gives a cry of pain.

“Be careful,” Bruce says. “Don’t tear your stitches.”

“Where am I?” Tim Drake demands. The mask is still in place but it does little to hide his anger. Or his fear. It’s strange. The boy is full of passion and hides away so easily. Bruce thinks he sees a little of himself in the boy.

“At the Cave,” Bruce says.

“What am I doing here?”

“You were injured,” Bruce says. “I took you back here for medical care.”

“Red Hood and--”

“Oracle says they’re tied up right now.”

Tim Drake nods jerkily. He makes a move as if to stand but winces in pain again.

“You should rest,” Bruce says.

Tim Drake ignores him. He attempts to get up again to no avail. Bruce tries to stop him by placing a hand on his shoulder but Tim Drake flinches away.

Bruce sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He never quite figured out how to act around the boy. Not when he turned up when he was thirteen and told Bruce he needed Robin and Bruce had turned him away, not when he turned up again with Dick a year later wearing a caricature of Robin’s colors and saving people. Not now, years later, when his continued existence is in defiance of Bruce.

“You should rest,” he says again.

“You’re in the streets again.”

It’s not a question but Bruce answers it anyway. “Yes.”

“You’re not branding criminals anymore.”

“No.”

“You’re letting other heroes be heroes.”

“Yes.”

“What the hell changed your mind?”

Bruce presses his mouth into a thin line. “I realized there’s still a way to be saved.”

Silence. He lets the words linger in the space between them, taking with it all it can.

Tim Drake’s voice, when he speaks, is full of bitterness. “Dick and Jason always told me that that was  _ Robin’s _ job.”

“You’re not Robin,” Bruce says quietly and Tim Drake looks as if he’s been slapped.

It’s only the truth and maybe that’s Bruce’s greatest slight against the boy. He was never Robin because Robin is Batman’s partner; boys who swore themselves to Bruce and to Batman and to justice. Tim Drake wears Robin’s colors but the name was never passed down properly, his journey incomplete.

“I’m not,” he says, voice full of venom. “I call myself Red Robin.”

Red Robin. A costume the color of blood splattered across the chest. A boy wearing the colors of a fallen hero. Nothing more than that. Can’t be anything more than that.

He remembers the thirteen-year-old boy, so full of life and passion, wearing the colors of a dead boy, trying so hard to save Bruce from himself. He had lasted for a year, coming back over and over again no matter how many times Bruce turned him away.

Until he just stopped coming altogether and the red costume appeared in Bludhaven.

“I didn’t deserve a Robin,” Bruce says softy.

Batman is also Robin’s partner. Darkness isn’t real unless there’s a light to remind everyone how it can be better; loss is always alongside recovery. In reality, neither can exist without the other. The two of them are just caricatures of what they could have been.

“And now?” Asked quietly, almost childlike. Except there are no children in Gotham, not really. Robin was one and he died.

Bruce’s lips twist into what once could have been a smile. “It’s a bit too late for that, don’t you think?”

Tim Drake hesitates. There’s a twinge in Bruce’s chest that is always there when the two of them are in the same room together; a little like loss. The boy is amazing, exceptional and intuitive. He’s brave enough to face down Batman and tell him what he needs and tenacious enough to be a hero on his own.

He could have been Bruce’s son in another life.

“I suppose you’re right,” Tim Drake says quietly, the bitterness seeping out of him.

Bruce looks away. He wants to say something, wants to offer words of comfort. There was once a time when he was a man who saved boys, swept them away and turned them into heroes. But Tim Drake isn’t a boy anymore and Bruce’s heart is too jagged for something like affection.

A motorcycle roars into the cave and a man with a red helmet walks into the cave with ease. His eyes flicker to the case, shoulders tensing. He stops just shy of a few feet away from Tim Drake.

“Come on Baby bird,” he says. The voice is unrecognizable and mechanized but Bruce will recognize those shoulders anywhere, those features and those strong arms. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.”

A snort. They speak as if Bruce isn’t there. “Sure you are. Can you walk?”

“...Give me a minute.”

“Tell the truth or I’ll sic Big Bird on you.”

“...I may need some help.”

Another snort along with the shake of the head. He wraps an arm around the younger man’s waist and gently lifts him up. The sight of it puts a lump in Bruce’s throat. The man raises his head to address Bruce.

“Thanks for the help.” The words are stilted, forced out from the throat. 

“Jason…”

There are so many things he wants to say, so many things he needs to know. So many things broken he wants to fix.

Bruce never could fix his own problems. He’s not about to start now.

Jason sighs heavily. “You could always start with apologies, you know?”

“You’re always welcome here,” Bruce manages. “If you need it.”

“Give it time,” Jason tells him. His voice is mocking, cynical; a far cry from the voice Bruce knows. “One day, it’ll actually be true.”

 

 

 

_...tbc _


	2. Barry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry discovers Gotham and learns from older heroes.
> 
> He doesn't like what he finds. At all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My ability to write fic increases exponentially as my deadlines close in. I'm not entirely happy with this one yet, but I actually do need to finish my deadlines so you're getting this now
> 
> ((if you know me irl, please don't judge me, i'm doing acads too i swear))
> 
> Edit: Actually proofread this chapter, so it's probably more readable. But let's face it, this is me and I still have a very questionable understanding of English grammar, so if you find an error somewhere, message me somewhere so I can fix it :)

Thursday night, Diana turns up to Bruce's loft in the middle of the night, unannounced. Diana seems to be the kind of person who should be announced before entering a room, like a princess from a fairy tale or something, if the princess is someone who can probably beat everyone in the room up with a look.

“Where is Bruce?” she demands.

Vic and Barry are in the cave. It’s a weird habit the two of them formed, waiting up for Batman to make sure he hasn’t gotten himself killed. The two of them have been staying with Bruce for around a month now. The possibility of Batman getting himself killed is very real. Alfred is running comms, and neither of them actually want to disturb him in the act of keeping Batman alive.

“Patrol,” Barry says. The three of them sit around one of the monitors. Only Alfred has access to them.

Bruce is generous with everything, Batman is the opposite. Barry thinks that it’s almost natural.

“Alone?” Diana looks startled, almost scared.

“He doesn’t really let us come with him,” Barry says. “We can pass on a message, if you want.”

Diana pursues her lips. “I came to talk to you two, as well. About the team.”

“The team?” Vic asks.

“I want to continue it,” she says. “Not just for extraterrestrial threats, but threats on this world as well. We will be what humanity needs us to be. Whatever that is.”

“Like a superhero team?” Barry asks.

“Yes.”

“Sweet! I’m in.”

Diana looks at him, baffled. A lot like Bruce had looked when Barry had said yes to him. Barry doesn’t know why everyone is so shocked with the idea. Who wouldn’t jump at the idea of being a superhero?

“I’m out,” Vic says. “I just want a normal life.”

Diana’s lips presses into a thinner line. “It is your choice, Victor,” she says. “But may I speak with you privately for a moment.”

“You’re not going to force me into it, are you?”

“I won’t.”

Vic sighs and gets up. Diana’s expression is grim. Her eyes keep flickering towards Alfred. Alfred is almost impossible to speak to, whenever Batman’s out on patrol, which is pretty understandable. You can be hospitable or you can keep your employer alive, you can’t really do both. Vic and Diana head over to a secluded corner, talking in murmurs.

Ten minutes later, they’re back and they both look like someone just died.

“I’ll stay,” Vic says, and it sounds a lot like a promise. Diana nods.

“Good,” she says.

 

\--

 

It's the third Friday night after their third month anniversary of staying with Bruce, and Barry’s running around Gotham.

Technically speaking, Barry’s not allowed to patrol Gotham at all. Vic isn’t either, or any of their once-team. Bruce takes issue with it, doesn’t actually say any of it out loud but he’s very good at saying things by not saying them, and in this situation, what he’s not saying is clear: metahumans aren’t allowed in Gotham. Apparently sets a bad precedent, says that Gotham doesn’t really need the added chaos of Gotham, which… Barry can’t really disagree with that.

He prefers Central, anyway. The city he knows, the city he loves, the city he’ll always come back to and call his home. The fact that he’s staying with Bruce isn’t going to change that, especially not when it’s literally three seconds away for him.

He’s in the streets of Gotham now, though.

But technically speaking, he’s not really patrolling even if he is stopping the occasional mugger here and there because he’s a hero and he can’t, in good conscience, let something like that pass, so there’s really nothing wrong. What he’s really doing is he’s looking for Robin.

(Robin has been his hero since forever. The idea of a kid being a bastion of justice is amazing to twelve-year-old Barry who’s with his first foster family and seeing his dad in jail every Sunday, even when his foster parents forbid it.

If Robin were in Central City, he remembers thinking, he’d help me. He’d fix this.

Barry’s not going to admit that he may have almost run away to Gotham, maybe once or twice. That is a thing that never happened.

Never admitting to the fact that he did his undergraduate thesis on the dynamic duo, either. That’s just embarrassing.)

He goes out to the streets--not in costume because not doing what Batman says is probably the most terrifying thing Barry’s done and he has to draw the line somewhere, but using his superspeed because Gotham is huge and he doesn’t have all night--looking for Robin, or Red Robin or whatever he calls himself these days.

He finds Batgirl instead.

The second one. The one with the full face mask. The one who looks more shadow than person. She was only around Gotham for a couple of months, and was unbeatable for all of it; she put the fear of Batgirl in anyone who was stupid enough not to be afraid of the red-haired one. Then she moved onto Bludhaven, like most of Gotham’s heroes did, and was just as formidable, if not more, there.

Now she’s here. Barry did not know that. He does not know what to do about it.

They stare at each other for a long time and Barry wonders if he should run. He’s pretty sure that he’s faster than her but he’s not so sure he can outrun her. It’s not impossible. Batman exudes that kind of omnipresence that is frankly terrifying for someone who allegedly has no powers. Barry has no plan to test what the other vigilantes of Gotham have to offer.

“Hi.” He waves a hand, laughing nervously.

Batgirl tilts her head and Barry imagines curious eyes. He resists the urge to run. He is horrible at staying still. Running’s basically the only thing he knows how to do.

“Flash,” Batgirl declares.

Barry freezes.

“What,” he says.

“You are the Flash,” Batgirl says. “Barry Allen.”

“No I’m not,” Barry says, which is a shitty lie even to him, and he bends his knees to run except he can’t run because that was proving her right and damn he’ll have to stay and try to get himself out of this conversation.

This is not how he imagined his night would go.

“Oracle hacked Batman’s files. You are Barry Allen: The Flash: Fastest Man Alive.” Batgirl says the words carefully, like she’s not sure how they fit in her mouth. “You have to come with me.”

Barry puts a hand on his mouth. It would probably fall to the floor if he didn’t.

“Follow,” Batgirl says, looking at him for a very long time. Then, she jumps off the roof.

Barry stares at her; three seconds, he thinks, though he feels like it’s much longer. She’s fast, already three roofs away before Barry manages to get his head together. Then, feeling like he doesn’t really have a choice, he follows.

 

\--

 

Batgirl takes him to Wayne Tower, in the middle of the city, which Barry did not expect. At all. He probably should have, though. Batman is Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne owns Wayne Tower. It would make sense that his other vigilante friends would be using it. Except he’s pretty sure that Bruce doesn’t really have other vigilante friends anymore; keeps telling Barry and Vic that he works alone, like he’s trying to convince himself.

Batgirl doesn’t look back once, not when he was chasing her through the rooftops, not when she enters Wayne Tower through a side entrance, and not when she presses a button to an elevator. She just seems sure he’ll follow.

Barry shuffles his feet. His shoes are a bit… burnt off. He should have worn his Flash shoes. Should have worn his Flash get-up but that would mean Bruce knowing what he’s doing and Barry doesn’t want that. He knew he was going to run but he hadn’t thought it would be this much.

“Don’t be afraid,” Batgirl says when the elevator doors open. They step inside. The elevator plays shitty jazz music. Barry fidgets.

“I’m not scared,” he says.

The black mask just stares at him. Barry gets the impression of a raised eyebrow.

“Okay, I’m scared. I am not a good liar. How can I not be scared? This is probably the most terrifying thing that I’ve ever done in my entire life.”

Batgirl is silent. She tilts her head curiously. “My brothers say that you have fought alien monsters.”

Brothers? Barry is learning the fine art of shutting up from Bruce and Vic. It’s kinda amazing and Barry’s not sure how it’s going to go. He doesn’t ask. Just files the information away for later.

“And this is somehow scarier. I mean I’m trapped in an elevator with freakin’ Batgirl and no offense, you’re way scarier than giant, flying insects. I’ve read about your rap sheet.”

Barry doesn’t see her face but he gets the impression that she’s laughing; something about how she’s holding herself, how her limbs loosen slightly, shoulders pushed back, back straightening marginally. It looks a lot like pride, Barry thinks.

The elevator dings. The doors open to reveal a really, really massive dark room. Barry can just make out a huge computer set-up, a lot like the one he had in Central. But bigger. Much, much bigger and way more complex. He thinks he sees gym equipment in the corner, but it’s hard to tell in the light.

“Don’t be scared,” Batgirl says again. “Oracle is really nice.” Then, pushes him out. Barry stumbles. The elevator doors close.

Barry is alone. He is not assured.

It feels an awful like the setup to a bad horror movie.

Then, the biggest screen lights up and suddenly a huge, android face is looming over Barry, all sharp lines and not-human eyes, bathed in an unearthly green light.

Barry absolutely does not shriek. He does not. “Holy fucking shit! What the fuck!”

“Relax,” a mechanized voice says, which honestly, what the fucking fuck.

“Relax!” Barry yells, hysterical. “I just got escorted by Batgirl into a horror movie and I’m just sure you’re going to kill me any second now and that is the worst possible death for someone with superspeed since horror movies are just about outrunning--”

“Flash!” The computer’s sharp voice cuts through Barry’s panicking. He manages to breathe a little bit slower, slow enough not to look like a hummingbird. That is a success. “We didn’t bring you here to kill you. I just want to talk.”

“Talk,” Barry echoes.

“Just talk. I’m Oracle.You’re Barry Allen.”

“Because you saying that is completely reassuring. How do you know who I am?”

“I looked.”

“Okay wrong question. _Why_ do you know who I am, because last I checked no one is supposed to know that.”

Barry’s not a _great_ hacker, but he thinks he’s decent enough at it to not be found out by a complete stranger. Besides, Diana and Alfred have been helping even Vic, and they are way, way better than Barry at this kind of thing.

A sound comes from the speakers that sounds an awful lot like a chuckle. The speakers seem to be set up throughout the entire room, making the voice booming and impossible to place. “Habit. I suppose we’ve gotten too used to hiding in the dark and knowing everything. It kept us alive.”

That… That actually sounds like something Bruce would say. Barry can actually picture him saying those exact words while explaining to them why he’s installing security cameras in their bathrooms, definitely with a lot less amusement and in a definitely human sounding voice, but definitely something he’d say. The thought makes him relax a bit.

“What do you want?” he asks. “And why not ask Batman? Don’t you know him better? I mean I don’t know who _you_ are, but Batgirl brought me here and--”

“I’m asking you,” Oracle says. “I trust you and I need your help.”

Barry doesn’t quite trust Oracle, or trust Oracle at all, really, but he doesn’t say this. Instead, he says, “On what.”

“You have a team. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and, I haven’t quite figured out what Victor Stone decided to call himself.”

“He hasn’t,” Barry says. “He’s still in denial. What about it?”

“We want in. Preferably without Batman knowing about it, though I’ll take what I can get.”

“...Want in?”

“I want to know when you’re moving, when there’s something to fight, when something goes wrong. You just go to Batman’s computer and do what I tell you and we’re good to go.” It’s kinda impossible to read a computerized face with a computerized voice and Barry guesses that that’s actually the point. For some reason though, he remembers Bruce making a plan how to defeat Steppenwolf; steely and impossible to argue with even when he’s being stupid. Something about the words, something about what Oracle is not saying.

They argued with Bruce with that plan, well the rest of the team did, Barry was too scared at the time. He figures it’s his turn now.

“Batman knows everything,” Barry says because he can’t quite process the rest.

“Try me.”

“What would be the point of that,” Barry demands. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because the world was suddenly ending and we didn’t even notice until it was too late. It’s not fun being kept in the dark, and you could have used our help if we were there but we weren't. We want to help. So will you help us do that?”

“Us?”

“Me. The birds once they stop being idiots. Other people.”

Batgirl, Barry assumes, and other people. Birds. Barry only knows of only one bird themed vigilante running around right now, but Bruce said that he’s not going to help Batman. Bruce said that he’s not associated with Batman anymore.

(Implies he died, but that’s a conversation for another time since Robin is very definitely alive and running around Gotham.

Or Red Robin. Personally, Barry doesn’t really know the difference.)

Barry opens his mouth and finds that he doesn’t know what to say, which isn’t that weird, except he can’t bring himself to say anything else, either, which is really, really weird. There’s nothing. Nothing he can come up with.

“I--” he says. “I don’t really know what to say to any of that.”

A pause. Longer than normal people pauses. A really, really long pause, all things considered. “Which part are you having problems with?”

A sound comes out of Barry’s mouth that sounds an awful lot like a hysterical laugh. “Everything,” he says. “Why are you talking to me? What do you mean birds? What do you mean by want in? I’m still not over how you brought me to a shady basement. Do you know how much of a supervillain you look right now? I’m having a problem with _everything._ ”

“... You’re very new to this, aren’t you?”

“You know my _name_ , how can you possibly not know that?”

Oracle is silent for a long time. Barry tries to steady his breathing, which has gotten really out of control again. Barry’s been doing this for barely a year, and he still feels a lot like he’s a nerdy kid who has no idea what he’s doing in the real world. He pushes people around, and pulls people out of the way, in the most literal sense. There is literally nothing to get used to or anything remotely heroic about his job.

He saves people but not the way the other heroes save heroes. He’s making this up as he goes and he’s shit at pretending that he actually knows what he’s doing.

“I have a very skewed perspective,” Oracle admits. “I don’t really know anyone who went through that.”

“And you just happen to know a lot of vigilantes?”

“Yes.”

Barry doesn’t know what to say to that, either. Does that make him weird or everyone around him crazy? A bit of both?

Probably a bit of both.

“I--You know what, I don’t care. What you’re asking sounds a lot like spying and I am not spying on my friends. I’m out.”

He takes a deep breath and turns away from the android face, he’d run barefoot. He’s done it before--

“I can help get your dad out of prison.”

Barry freezes. Then, slowly, deliberately, full of careful steps and careful everything, he turns back around. The entire world goes still, quiet, more still and quiet than he usually sees. He listens to the way his heart beats, to the way the air shifts. His breathing is the only breathing in the room. Oracle is a computer screen with a computer generated face. You can’t read body language off of a computer.

“Say that again,” he says lowly.

“Henry Allen, convicted of the murder of your mother,” Oracle says. “You were the only witness. Your witness statement said that your room was filled with red lightning. You said that a man in a yellow suit killed her and disappeared in a flash of lightning. Witness statement was dismissed because you were twelve and it sounded ridiculous. I think we both know what actually happened.”

Barry doesn’t say anything. He’s not stupid. He knows when he’s being threatened, knows when he’s being bribed. He doesn’t talk about the nights he stayed up because he can’t get the flash of red light out of his mind, all the nights where he tore through everything he could find, trying to find a rational expression for what happened and finding nothing. He doesn’t say that there were times where he started to doubt his own senses, terrified because if he can’t he remember what really happened that night, how can he trust any of his memories.

He doesn’t talk about how the puzzle pieces slotted easily into place because lightning finally struck and how it was almost a relief to know that it was the world who was crazy and not him. He doesn’t say how the thought gave him nightmares in his waking moments days later, haunting each moment in his life.

The memory of that night is as clear as the day it happened. The man had been masked but he’s large and bulky. Barry’s lightning is blue and not red, and he’s a pretty small guy, but those are variables and not facts. Bodies change. The color of light is dependent on a lot of things, friction is one of them. More speed means more friction. If Barry were faster…

“”What do you know about the man who murdered my mom?”

“As much as you do, which is only that it wasn’t your dad,” Oracle says. “I don’t know who did it but I can get him out. He can be free again.”

“How?”

“I can fake records and I have endless resources.”

Barry takes a deep breath, thoughts moving faster than even what he can comprehend, too much, there’s too much. Too many possibilities, too many different outcomes. Too many things that could happen, too many paths. Not predictable. No straight line that he can just follow, not obstacle he can just knock over.

He thinks of his dad’s face, thinks of spending half of his life seeing it through bulletproof glass no matter how many times he said that _it wasn’t him_. He thinks of the way Bruce held his shoulder and told him to take it one by one.

One by one it is then.

“And the man who actually murdered my mom?”

“We’ll find him. Together. And you do whatever you want with him.”

“You’re not going to hurt them?” he asks.

“No,” Oracle says. “I want to make sure they stay safe.”

There’s a lot more to it than that, Barry knows, plots and self-interests and things people in the real world do. Things they don’t like to admit to themselves. They like to pretend they’re something like superheroes when really, they’re really just a bunch of selfish people who are after selfish things.

Barry's not really any different, all things considered.

“And you’ll help my dad?”

“Yes.”

Deep breath. Always a deep breath before a sprint. Always a deep breath before he does something risky, something his parents won’t like, something not good. Deep breath; in and out. Then, faster than he can regret it...

“What do you need me to do?”

 

\--

 

When Barry returns to Bruce’s loft, with new shoes in his exact size because Oracle seemed eerily prepared about it, Batman is already waiting for him in the cave. His cowl is still on, eyes impossible to see from this distance. The only thing Barry can tell definitively is the disapproval that’s just absolutely coming off the guy in waves.

Batman’s the kind of person where every conversation feels a lot like a confrontation or a stand-off. He never fails to make Barry horrible, like he did something wrong, even if he didn’t. Especially if he had.

“What were you doing out tonight?”

Vic must have gone to bed, Barry thinks, maybe Alfred forced him. He's getting no support here, not that he deserves it.

“I--” Barry opens his mouth. Thinks. Closes it again. “I don’t think you want to know that. I didn’t do anything wrong. What I do in my free time is none of your business.”

Batman’s hands curl into fists. “If it happens in Gotham, it is my business.”

That’s what Oracle said Batman would say. Oracle seemed eerily prepared for this conversation, too. Oracle just seems eerily prepared for everything.

“You were with Batgirl,” Batman says. “Why?”

“I… I am not allowed to tell you that. Sorry.”

Go with the truth, Oracle had said, or at least half of it. Barry’s horrible at half-truths, at not just blurting stuff out, but Oracle drilled him on this. It happened in like twenty minutes, but Oracle is very comprehensive and absolutely unforgiving. He still doesn’t think he can get away with it with Batman, but he can probably put up a pretty good fight.

His fists clench tighter and his lips tilt towards a scowl.

“They’re asking you to do something.”

Barry doesn’t answer.

“You’re going to do it.”

Barry turns away. He clenches his fist around the flash drive Oracle had given him.

Batman lets out a breath, sounding a little shaky, sounding almost uncertain. Barry hadn’t ever heard a sound like that coming from Batman, didn’t even think it was possible if he didn’t hear it for himself.

“You can trust them,” Batman finally says. “They’re good people.”

“What?”

“You can trust them.”

“You know what they’re going to do?”

“I can guess,” Batman says. “You should trust them,” he repeats. “More than you trust me.”

Barry doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything. What he does know is that Gotham is a lot more complicated than anyone’s letting on. Batman trusts them, which is weird and wrong because there is literally nothing trustworthy about Oracle and or but… But.

Barry remembers the news. Remembers reading what Clark wrote about the ‘Bat-vigilante.’ He’s not stupid or naive or oblivious or scatterbrained, even if he probably seems like all of the above. He knows that Batman’s not exactly trustworthy, either.

Bruce Wayne? Sure, Barry’s willing to kinda live with him and let him spoil him rotten with his gazillion dollars. Batman, Batman who was branding criminals a few months ago, Batman who reportedly doesn’t care about collateral damage, who branded criminals and left them for dead? Batman who’s arrogant enough to bring someone back to life because of... Reasons? Batman is a different story.

Batman apparently knows this, too.

He nods slowly and that’s the end of that.

 

\--

 

“Have you thought about it?” Barry asks Vic on Saturday morning, while hanging out near Bruce’s pool. “What Diana said. Being an official, real life team of superheroes?”

“Haven’t you had enough of fights?” Vic asks. He sounds tired. Wary and really, really tired.

“I like helping people,” Barry says. Vic side-eyes him. He looks a bit weird, sitting by the pool wearing… nothing, just his robot self roasting in the sun. But then, everything about this place is weird and not quite real, like something from a TV show, so Barry’s not really fussy about it. They’re all weird.

“Diana said something else to you,” Barry says. “What was it?”

Vic scowls. Vic is really, really good at scowling. He has that expression down to a point. “None of your business.”

“Sorry.”

Vic sighs, then heaves a deep breath, like he’s reigning himself in. Barry appreciates the gesture. “You’re still patrolling Central City, aren’t you? How are you doing that plus your job? And you still want a superhero team? Seriously?”

“I’m really, really good at multitasking,” Barry says, deadpan.

Vic snorts. “Don’t you get tired of feeling like you owe people?”

“Doesn’t really think of owing people anything,” Barry says. “More like I can do something so why not?”

It seems really reasonable in Barry’s mind. He doesn’t understand why everyone else seems to be having a moral crisis over it. Being a good person and not letting innocent people get hurt should be an easy choice, shouldn’t it?

“Well, I’m not like that,” Vic says, turning away. Barry’s not really in the mood for swimming right now, and Vic is not really in the mood of exposing tech no one quite understands to water. “I just want to go back to school. Maybe get back into football again.”

“That’s fair.”

“Why do I feel like there’s a but coming?”

“No but,” Barry says. “You should do whatever you want, and it sucks that you can’t. I think you’re the one with a but.”

Vic hasn’t really been doing much after Steppenwolf, but he’s still hanging around Bruce’s place. Just hanging around. Not really doing anything, just pretending that he is. Which is completely fine because Barry knows perfectly well the urge to just hide under a blanket and ignore the world for his own sanity, but he can’t quite get rid of the nagging idea that this is the kind of avoidance that doesn’t go away.

“You can do anything you want,” Barry says. “Why are you hanging around in Gotham?”

He knows Vic’s dad has offered a lot. And Diana. Even Aquaman, because Aquaman seems to have taken a liking to them, but Vic especially. Barry knows why _he’s_ in Gotham, and his reasons are a bit crazy and a bit unhealthy. What he can’t quite figure out if Vic’s reasons are too.

“Hey Barry,” Vic says after a really, really, really long time. His expression is something between wary, uncomfortable, and thunderous. “Shut up.”

“Okay,” Barry says.

 

\--

 

Sunday morning and Barry’s visiting his dad, like he always does. Like he’s always done since he was twelve. He tells his dad about everything that happened in his week, every detail. Not so much since he got his superspeed, though. It’d be pretty hard to explain in a place with so many cameras watching but…

There’s so much Barry wants to tell his Dad, so much he wants to say and all he wants to say is already at the tip of his tongue, ready to fall out, but he can’t he can’t he can’t…

He wants to tell his dad it’s going to be okay, that he can fix things, for real this time, and it’s going to stick and things are going to be okay and it’s all going to be fine. Instead, when his dad picks up the receiver, he says,

“I really miss you, Dad.”

His dad looks sad. His dad always looks sad, but he always looks sadder on days Barry gets like this. It’s not often. Barry doesn’t like making his dad sad, and he can pretend for an hour for his dad and make his life a little less shitty. But some days, some days, it just leaks out. He doesn’t know why he’s sad when everything’s already going to be okay, but he is and it’s awful.

“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to--I just--Hey, did I tell you that I kinda know Bruce Wayne now?”

“Son,” his dad says gently, kindly, understandingly, lovingly. Barry really doesn’t deserve him. “I really miss you, too. More than you can ever imagine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Oracle promised. Barry wants to tell his dad about Oracle’s promise and that everything’s going to be okay and Barry’s finally going to be able to fix this, but there would be too many things wrong with that.

“Now,” his dad says, “tell me about Bruce Wayne.”

Barry pastes a smile on his lips and does. Half of it are outright lies and the other half is only kinda true. Some stories of Vic fall in there, too, some with Diana, even Clark, though not the full thing of anything. He’s getting really good at the not-telling-the-truth-but-kinda-telling-the-truth kind of thing. Apparently, it’s an occupational hazard of being a superhero.

Sunday goes, like it always does, and the visit is over too soon, like it always is.

“Dad,” he says after they’ve said their goodbyes but before he leaves. “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay. I’m going to fix this.” And he puts the receiver down before his dad can say anything else. This one’s a promise he’s not going to break.

 

\--

 

Sunday night and Batman is on patrol. Again. Leaving Barry and Vic alone in the cave. Again.

Alfred is running comms and Barry doesn’t want to interrupt him. He’s a bit and kinda really terrified of Alfred. The man gives off the impression that he can shoot you full of shotgun while insisting that you say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’

“He can’t keep doing this,” Vic mutters, shaking his head.

Barry kinda agrees with him. He patrols Central City and it’s not like he’s completely useless. And Vic is really smart and really strong and in desperate need of something to do that isn’t letting his dad do weird experiments on him. It’s just more logical to let them come with sometimes. Batman could definitely use the help and it’s not like he’s working with other vigilantes right now.

But at the same time, “I thought you didn’t even want to get involved in this kind of stuff,” he says.

“I don’t,” Vic says. “He’s still being stupid and he’s going to get himself killed. He should take you, at least.”

“He’s not,” a familiar voice says from the shadows. Barry and Vic jump. “In danger. Batman is safe. We are watching him.”

“What the fuck?” Vic says, while Barry’s jaw drops. Alfred barely even looks up from the computer monitor. He seems to be giving strict instructions to Batman not to die.

“I assume I can’t tempt you to stay the night with cookies?” he asks in a very tired voice, the words directed towards the shadows.

“Waiting for Batman,” the voice says, still in the shadows. Vic raises an arm and it turns into a gun, but Barry puts a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head.

“Who the hell are you?” Vic demands.

“Batgirl,” Batgirl says. “... Oracle sent me,” she adds after a moment.

“Oracle?”

“It’s not like you to play messenger,” Alfred comments.

“Not messenger,” Batgirl says. “Oracle wants to help. I’m helping her.”

Batgirl is takes a few steps into the light. She’s not wearing the full mask this time, just a domino mask over her eyes, revealing dark hair, falling just past her shoulders.  Barry almost asks, but then it shouldn’t be weird, should it? Batgirl worked with Batman, didn’t she? It’d be weird to ask _Batgirl_ how she got in the Batcave. Alfred seems to know her and trust her, and that’s enough for Barry.

“Just waiting for Batman,” she tells Vic. “Be gone soon.”

“Last I heard, you were in Bludhaven.”

“Been in Gotham for a month.”

The look on Vic’s face is kinda funny. He’s not used to not knowing something. Barry doesn’t know how he doesn’t know it, but it’s amazing. It’s a pretty funny kind of disbelief, and Vic isn’t disbelieving enough for someone in their line of work.

“What do you want with Batman?”

Batgirl tilts her head curiously, watching them. Her posture is impossibly tense and loose at the same time. Barry really, really wants to know what she’s thinking.

“Family matters,” she says, gesturing to the insignia on her chest. “Bat-family matters.”

“He never mentioned you,” Vic says, a hint of anger, and Barry shakes his head again.

“Just talk,” Batgirl says. “Not here… Batman likes… likes taking care of people. Likes to take care of you. Not here to change. Just talk. He is… He is family. We are family.”

Her voice is imploring, like she's asking them to understand and Barry doesn't know what there is to understand. She's Batgirl. She doesn't need to explain herself to  _them,_ not when Barry are the ones freeloading here.

The roar of the car sounds in the garage and all of them except Batgirl jump in surprise. Batman steps out, looking furious but uninjured, which means that it's a better than usual night. He takes on look at Batgirl and freezes, genuinely freezes. He’s tense, looks almost scared.

“Batgirl,” he says, voice rougher than usual.

“Batman,” she says. “Oracle sent me. We will talk.”

“How are your brothers?” Batman asks.

“Better,” she says. “Still angry, but better.”

“That’s good.”

There’s something incredibly stilted about them, like they’ve forgotten how to talk to each other, like the words mean things they don’t usually mean. Something huge shifting in the middle of the room, choking out the air in the room.

And she does something completely unexpected, opens her arms and runs towards him, wrapping them around Batman’s neck. Batman wraps an involuntary arm around her, holding on tight.

“I think we should go,” Barry mutters to Vic, pulling him away.

The last thing he hears is Batgirl saying, “I’m not angry. Not anymore. Time to move on now. I really missed you.”

 

\--

 

“You know about her?” Vic demands, once they’re out of earshots.

“We met,” Barry admits. “I was running around and she was just… there.”

“Batgirl? You’ve been running around with Batgirl?”

“Just once.”

Vic closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You can’t trust them,” he says.

“Well, you don’t know that, we hardly--”

“You can’t trust them,” Vic repeats. “You should know this. You’re the one with the weird obsession.”

Barry feels himself turning pink. “It’s not an obsession, and I might just add that holding that over me when I’ve kept it secret is really rude--anyway, if I did have an obsession, I’d tell you that it was only Batman and Red Hood who’ve actually crossed the line.”

“On record,” Vic says. “Dig deep enough and you find dark stuff on all of them.”

Barry gets a thought, like a puzzle piece finally slotting into place after a really, really long time. He thinks he should have been faster. “This is why you stayed, isn’t it? To stop him if he goes rogue. That’s what Diana asked you to do.”

Vic’s lips thin. “Batman’s crossed the line before. No reason he won’t cross the line again. Everyone else seems to have forgotten.”

Barry doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing he can really say to that.

 

\--

 

Come Tuesday, new evidence turns up in his dad’s case. Big evidence. Big enough to reopen the entire thing.

Friday morning, there’s a court date with an almost assurance that his dad will be absolved of all crimes. It’s two months and an eternity away but Barry can hardly keep his excitement in check. He’s literally bouncing off the walls when he talks with his dad about it.

And on the way back to Gotham.

And in Wayne Tower, thanking Oracle.

“You’re father’s an innocent man,” is all Oracle says. “What’s the point of being a hero if you can’t protect the ones you love?”

The room at the basemen of Wayne Tower looks essentially the same, still dark. There’s rigging in the corner, a chair in the middle, right in front of the screen, and Barry wonders who those things are for and why they’re letting him see it. Batgirl is lurking in the corner this time, though, still not talking, just watching him.

“I don’t know how I can ever thank you--”

"You already know what I asked,” Oracle says. “You’ve done that. We’re even.”

“About that, I was thinking maybe--”

“Barry.” Oracle’s voice is suddenly very soft, almost dangerous. “I thought we had a deal.”

Barry pauses. Lets himself think. Opens his mouth several times. He’s learned to slow down a bit, let his thoughts be thoughts before he turns them into words.

“Is that a threat?” he asks. “Cause that sounds a lot like a thread. Are you threatening me?”

He feels Batgirl shifting, coming closer, he thinks. He thinks he can probably get out in time.

“It’s not a threat,” Oracle says. “Think of it as a reminder.”

“Of what?”

“Your word is the only thing that matters in this line of work. Make sure it means something.”

“But don’t actions speak louder than words?”

“Sometimes,” Oracle says. Batgirl shifts, stepping back this time. “But this world is a world of promises. Heroes are made of promises. All the promises you can keep, to yourself and to other people.”

Barry made so many promises to his dad and he can’t keep one without breaking the other. He thinks of Diana who keeps promising to build a better world, like she’s making up for something, or Clark who doesn’t even seem to want to be there in the first place, refusing to promise anything.

He thinks of Bruce who held out promises of friendship but is the one who keeps pulling away.

He thinks he kinda understands, but kinda doesn’t. If heroes are made of promises, what does that make them if they can’t keep them?

“Are you?” Barry asks curiously. “A hero, I mean?”

“No,” Oracle says, after a moment. “But I wanted to be.”

“Wanted?”

“Wanted.”

He still doesn’t think he quite trusts Oracle but somehow, for some reason, Oracle got his dad out of jail, and that has to count for something. Batgirl doesn’t talk much but she’s good company. She seems to like him. Batman seems to adore her. She’s been in the cave more, ever since that first time.

“Why all the secrets?” Barry asks. “Why not just come out in the open. Dia-Wonder Woman would love to have you, she keeps looking for more metas and I don’t think you’re metas but--”

“Barry,” Oracle interrupts. “How much do you know about Gotham’s vigilantes?”

Barry flushes. He doesn’t want to admit a lot, that it was his absolute, ultimate obsession that he hasn’t quite let go yet. That’s just embarrassing.

“Not much,” he lies.

“Sure you don’t,” Oracle says. “Well, let me tell you Barry Allen, we don’t work well in the light and Batman’s just kidding himself if he thinks it’s going to work this time.”

“This time?”

A sigh. “We’ve been around too long, done too many things.” The voice cuts itself off. “I think we’re done here. Batgirl will escort you out.”

Batgirl steps forward, putting a hand on his shoulder and he lets her. It’s very clearly a dismissal.

“Come,” she says.

Barry turns to leave. “You know,” he says, getting ready to run. “You’re not nearly as mysterious as you want to be.”

 

\--

 

Monday again and Bruce, apparently in a fit of billionaire whimsy, bought a bank and gave Clark his childhood home back. He’s also renovating his family’s old mansion, because of course his family has an old mansion. Of course they do.

All of this gives Diana an excuse to bring all of them together for team building purposes. Barry’s not really against it but…

No one else seems really for it, either.

Alfred is all for it, and that, combined with Diana’s seemingly unending determination, is probably why all six of them is sitting around a dining table, staring at each other in a way that can only be described as awkward.

“We’ll be having the manor soon,” Bruce says, clearing his throat. He’s cutting up his eggs like he’s gourmet dining. “It’s more spacious.”

“Still can’t believe you have an actual manor,” Vic mutters. “Who needs a manor? I knew your family owned a manor, but I still can’t believe you have a manor.”

“Same,” Barry says.

“It is going to useful,” Diana says. “A place for us to meet in times of need.”

“Like a war council,” Arthur says. Arthur. It’s a ridiculously normal name for a ridiculously not-normal person that Barry can’t quite wrap his head around that one yet. “Is that what we are? Cause I didn’t sign up for that.”

“We’re not at war,” Bruce says.

“We kinda are,” Barry says, at the same time Vic says,

“You’re the one who said it. Not us.”

“Bruce is right, we’re not at war,” Clark says. There is something almost like derision on his face, but then he’s always been impossible to read. Clark always looks like he still hasn’t quite figured out how people are supposed to work. “We don’t need this.” He starts to get up, but a firm hand is placed on his shoulder.

“We are not leaving,” Diana says. “We have a responsibility to this world.”

“To do what?” Clark demands. Barry almost flinches away. Clark losing his temper is probably the second scariest thing he’s ever seen. “They don’t want our help, they don’t _need_ our help.”

“We can do better,” Diana insists. “We can help humanity do better.”

“Or we can do worse.”

“That’s really stupid,” Barry mutters. Then freezes. Mutters apparently meant say very, very, loudly. Everyone is staring at him. Well, he started it, might as well push through. It’s what his dad and Bruce and Oracle, maybe even Batgirl would do. It’s what Robin would do, too, he thinks. “That’s true for everything, isn’t it, we can hurt or not hurt or help, and it’s all up to us. We have superpowers so we can do more, but it’s the same thing, we choose to help or hurt or not, but we have to choose.”

“I chose to help, Barry,” Clark says, eyes unreadable. “They wanted me dead.”

Still stupid, Barry thinks, though he doesn’t say it. Lots of people who try to help get killed for it, basically how history works. It’s a weird way of looking at the world, pretty dickish actually, as if the world owes you for being a good person, like it’s something that should be a choice instead of the norm. Barry’s dad was a doctor and they put him in jail. Doesn’t mean he should have let those patients die.

Barry was bullied a lot. Doesn’t mean he’d just let his bullies _die,_ not when he can save them. There are assholes but doesn’t mean Barry’s an asshole, too.

Bad things happening to you and making sure bad things don’t happen to other people don’t have a correlation. At all.

Don’t blame other people for your bad choices, Barry wants to say, but maybe not really. A lot of bad choices in this room. A lot of blame going around. A lot of things everyone is leaving out and a lot of things they failed to do. Barry kinda hates that he’s in the middle of it, kinda hates that he’s the one telling these people who are so much better at this, so much more experienced, know so much more than he does, what to do.

“If you’re looking for a thank you,” he says. “I think you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. That’s not how it works.”

Clark’s face is hard to read, incomprehension? Anger? Sadness? Doesn’t matter. Barry can’t stand to look at it, so he looks away.

“We’re not at war, no,” he tells the table. “Maybe we don’t even need this. Who knows? Maybe we’ll only need it for alien invasions--” quick knock on wood because that’s just tempting fate “--doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. I’m not a hero, but I’m not the asshole who’s going to just let people die because they don’t like me, or I have some angst, or whatever you’re hiding. Not when I can stop it.”

It’s the angriest he’s been in a long time. It’s the worst he’s felt in a long time. Something long coming, he thinks. He’s tired. Tired of people dancing around what should be so easy, tired of people saying something and meaning the other thing. Tired of agendas and plots and self-interests. And he’s tired of cowards and liars and letting them be cowards and liars.

Barry runs in a straight line because it’s the quickest way from one point to the next. He doesn’t think of himself as a hero, but it shouldn’t be as hard as everyone makes it out to be. Being a good person shouldn’t be so hard.

He remembers a long line of people who didn’t even try for his dad, just let him rot, and those people who are much worse who expected Barry to thank them for doing the bare minimum and not calling his dad a murderer to his face. It’s stupid stupid stupid stupid. You don’t need thanks to be good. If you do, you’re not being a good person,you’re just a two-faced asshole.

He’s running before he realizes and finds himself in the basement of Wayne Tower.

 

\--

 

“Why did you leave Gotham? It was a hellhole when you left! So many people died, Batman was killing people and you were just letting him! What were you…” His voice trails off. He doesn’t see the face of Oracle. And he does, but there’s also a dark haired, blue-eyed guy, a little younger than Barry. He stares at Barry with wide eyes and a pale face.

“You’re not Oracle,” Barry says lamely.

“Who are you?” the guy demands.

“It’s fine, Tim,” Oracle says. “He’s a friend.”

“A friend,” the guy, Tim, repeats.

“A friend.”

“You have questions,” Oracle says. “Ask them.”

Barry swallows. Oracle says that a lot, when Barry’s too lost in his own head or his own fears that he can’t quite get his people face straight. So many questions and some of them are more important and Barry’s really bad with faces and _they don’t matter right now._ “Why did you leave Gotham?”

“Because we had to,” Tim says. He watches Barry with curious eyes. Too old and too young at the same time, a little like what Barry sometimes feels.

“You’re heroes,” Barry says. “Heroes don’t just leave.”

“We’re not heroes, Barry. I told you that,” Oracle says softly. Barry swallows again. His throat feels too thick, eyes too heavy.

“I don’t think that word means what it’s supposed to.”

“Lots of things don’t mean what they’re supposed to.”

“It should,” he snaps. “We should make it mean what it’s supposed mean because otherwise what’s the point?”

“You’ll learn different, soon,” Tim says and Barry feels his temper snap completely.

“Stop talking to me like a child!”

He’s not stupid and he’s not naive and he knows how the world works and he knows very, very intimately how horrible and cruel it is, and he is so tired of people treating him like he still has to learn more, hurt more, and if he does, he’ll understand them, understand why they did the wrong things they did, and if he understood then he’d thank them because of course he would.

Because right and wrong change with how much you’ve been through, and maybe, _Barry hasn’t been through enough_.

He knows pain, knows death, knows despair; he doesn’t know why that means he should abandon the world.

“I don’t know what happened, but we’ve all been through crap, we all have issues. There is never any excuse to just up and _leave._ ”

He runs to Central because he’s good at running and not finishing conversations, and he always comes back and that’s always been enough before, and he hopes it’s still enough when things always seem to be not enough. He starts his patrol early. He stops every mugging he can find, stops every robbery, every bad thing. He does all the good he can do, help as much people as he can, do as much as he can, and then some. And if the Flash seems angrier, his hits more spiteful, well everyone’s allowed to have a bad day, aren’t they?

Except his dad’s voice is in his head, telling him that helping people and being a good person are two different things. Except there are people who help people for the wrong reasons and his dad taught him that it was his job to help people for the right ones, and Barry had promised that he would. _He promised._

Barry would do anything to keep his promises to his dad. He runs back to his warehouse that smells musty after weeks of disuse, cutting his patrol short two hours early, and curls into a ball, trying to focus on his breathing. This is his home, he thinks, the place that wasn’t as pretty, wasn’t as great, but is so much simpler. So much easier.

He returns to Gotham in the morning feeling worse, but that, he thinks, is completely besides the point. No one mentions Barry’s meltdown, just pretends it didn’t happen, which seems to be the norm in a place like Gotham.

Barry’s not sure how much longer he can deal with that.

 

\--

 

It’s a Thursday when the Joker comes back and its Barry and Vic who helps Batman out for it. At least they try to, Batman locks them in the cave and locked all the communications out of it.

“We need to stop him,” Barry says. “He’s going to get himself killed.”

“I can’t open this door,” Vic says. “He locked me out somehow? How did he lock me out? I’m made of alien tech.”

“He’s Batman and how he did it isn’t important because Batman is going to get himself killed and we’re trapped in a stupid cave because he’s so stupid and--”

A hand on his shoulder and Barry suddenly realizes that he isn’t quite breathing properly, or at all, and that’s bad bad bad bad but what else is he gonna do and this is so bad and he’s not going to let it end this way and why is it--

“Barry. Barry, I need you to breathe. Calm down. You’re shaking too fast, man.”

Barry wants to say that he’s trying but everything is too slow, the air is too slow in coming in his lungs and thoughts are too fast and there’s no coming out and there’s no getting out and--

He needs to get out. Take it step by step, a familiar, mechanized voice says in his head.

“Oracle,” he manages to gasp out.

“What?” Vic’s voice sounds very distant, like from underwater distant, or like when he’s running and everyone else is standing still distant. Barry latches onto the one thought keeping him steady.

“Oracle I know you’re listening,” he says. “It’d be really great if you got us out like right now, because Batman is going to get himself killed and you know this, and just.... I know I got angry but _please._ ”

A moment, then another, and Barry knows that his moments are faster than other people’s but this is just excruciating and everything is going wrong and Barry can’t do this and--

“Thought you’d never ask,” a voice from the speakers says. “He’s almost hacked through. Sit tight.”

“What the hell is going on?”

Just then, the cave door opens to reveal a man on a motorcycle, tall and lithe. He’s not wearing a mask but wearing the same kind of armor that Batman does, minus the cape. Barry sees blue eyes, bright like the sky on a clear day, and a grim set to his mouth. No mask, just blue eyes, like he has nothing to hide. He regards Barry and Vic with an unreadable expression, hands clenched tight.

“Suit up,” he says. “Time to save the asshole from himself again.”

 

 

_tbc..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a lot longer than the first chapter, and with more plot. I know it seems all over the place rn, but istg i have a plan for this fic
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](https://discowlng.tumblr.com)!

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think! Also I'm on [tumblr](http://discowlng.tumblr.com) if you want to chat :D  
> Note: I'm like 80% sure the term 'Wonder Woman' has not been used in the universe yet but I'm using it in this fic because I need the iconography to be a thing so yeah, they all have superhero names. It is importantTM


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